


On The Sands

by pornbot



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 08:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13713444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pornbot/pseuds/pornbot
Summary: She meant to recreate the works of Lowry not get mesmerised by a mermaid.





	On The Sands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mementomoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mementomoe/gifts).



> Sorry this is so late and so G rated.

Berwick in April is grey and bleak. The rain alternately lashes down through her raincoat and camera’s waterproof cover or mizzels constant dampness. She had planned to recreate each of Lowry’s paintings of the town in watercolour but instead has spent more time photographing the town and sheltering in various cafes. On the first break in the rain she walks up the pier to the lighthouse, determined to at least get some photos of the seals her fellow guests had raved about and if the weather holds for long enough a rough painting of the sea.

 

The lighthouse is unremarkable and with the sun sparkling against the sea it is hard to see Lowry’s bleak image. Around the pier seals play, heads bobbing amongst the seaweed and swimming close just below. Inspired she pulls out her portable easel and paints. Focused on capturing the sparkling sea she notices only after it is done that the patch of weed in the center of her painting looked more like hair than weed and the face peering up was more human than seal. Confused she looks out to the sea, her painting resting on the bench to dry. No, it hadn’t been a figment of her subconscious that was not seaweed and those eyes staring up at her were not a seals eyes. Fascinated she walks to the edge of the pier looking down at the girl frolicking in the waves with a seal. The girl seems to both be completely oblivious to her and showing off. Her long agile tail flicks from the water more often than the seals around her and her face peaks above the waves longer. She watches the girl fascinated until she leaves paying no attention to the other people on the pier. It isn’t until she’s back at the hostel eating overcooked pasta and a metallic tasting sauce as children scream around her that she thinks to take out either her camera or to begin a new sketch.

 

In the dorm three girls chatter, sharing a bottle of white rum and a cheap perfume as they got ready for a night out while an older woman pointedly ignores them. She tries to draw in the yellow light but she knows the colours will be wrong and the girls laugh loudly at the worst moments, shaking her from her memories. The moment the girls are gone, clattering out in high-heels and barely there clothes, the woman throws open the window letting gusts of brisk salt air dance round the room and turns off the overhead light. The bedside light is odd to sketch under, less yellow but throwing strange shadows across her paper, so she burrows under her blankets, her mind turning from what she’d seen today to old paintings of mermaids that made her wish for privacy.

 

She dreams feverishly of girls who became seals, seals who became girls, slick skin beneath her hands, bracingly cold water that pulled her under towards something half-seal, half-girl, and being caught tight in seaweed that turned to hair. She wakes panting, cunt throbbing, tangled in her sheets and longing for something.

 

She is drawn towards the coast, the river and the pier. Whenever she lets herself wander she finds herself at one or another and the girl is always there, teasing otters under the bridge, frolicking with the seals at the pier or basking on a rock at the beach. Even when she pushes herself away from the sea making herself explore the remains of the castle walls her mind is on the mermaid. In a week she has a sketchbook full of her, half drawn figures next to studies of churches, seascapes with a mermaid not quite hiding beneath the waves. Every night she dreams of her, wakes up wet and wanting for the sea or a girl she isn’t sure.

 

She has to stop herself from walking off the pier or climbing over the river wall into the river to join her. Every time she stops herself later and the girl is closer until she’s standing thigh deep in the incoming tide of the cold North Sea and a mermaid is swimming around her legs encouraging her further out. Her wool coat and jumper are sodden weights pulling her down into the sea and her trousers tangle like ropes around her legs. She’s shoulder deep in the water and face to face with the girl.

 

The girl is mesmerising up close, more beautiful than anything she’s seen before. Her fingers are webbed and freezing on her face as she traces her lips before leaning forward to kiss her. Her eyes flutter closed and she opens her mouth, tasting salt and feeling the mermaid’s razor sharp teeth against her tongue.

 

One of the mermaid’s arms wraps around her shoulders, sharp nails biting through her layers to her skin. She should be cold she knows. She was cold before her mermaid touched her. The mermaid’s other hand is pulling at the intersection of her jumper and her jeans. The tide is still coming in, the toes of her boots are all that scrape the sea bed. She fights heavy arms up, tangles useless fingers in the girls hair.

 

She’s dizzy, breathless from her mermaid’s kisses. She wants more than this but she doesn’t want to break the kiss and ask. The feel of slick smooth skin beneath her fingers, the pain-pleasure of sharp nails on her breasts. She grazes over hip bones covered in a thick layer of muscles and down to the powerful tail. The girl’s tail jerks, her fingers scratch her back and they temporarily sink below the waves. 

 

She bites herself or the mermaid she isn’t sure and pulls from the kiss for the first time since this started. Her mouth fills with copper, salt and dirt. She’s cold, her arms feel useless and her body shakes with violent shivers.

 

“What is your name my Lowry?” The mermaid asks, her webbed fingers tracing patterns on her back beneath her sweater.

 

“D-d-delia” She stutters, it’s hard to think and speak.

 

“I’m Tweed.” The mermaid kisses her once again her arms holding above the water. “I will have to let you go, my dashing Lowry, or you will drown” Her eyes are closing and it’s hard to focus on her mermaid. “Come see me in Llangrannog in the summer.” She hears as the world turns black.

 

She wakes up in A&E, there’s a draft down her back and a scratchy blanket wrapped around her. When she moves too much a tetchy nurse comes in to scold her for getting caught in the tide but her mind is miles away. In North Wales in late summer. The sea will be warmer and she will not be wearing so many layers. She fills three pages of her new sketch book with Tweed before they’ll let her go back to the hostel.


End file.
